


At Night It Gets Worse

by Rens_Knight



Series: Another Set of Eyes: A Star Wars Alternate Universe [7]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: In which Kylo Ren realizes the full gravity of the situation he has mired himself in, in the AU ofAnother Set of Eyes.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Reader
Series: Another Set of Eyes: A Star Wars Alternate Universe [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/711291
Comments: 5
Kudos: 2





	At Night It Gets Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MasterOf4Elements](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOf4Elements/gifts).



> (CAUTION! This story has SPOILERS through Part 3 of my main work, _Another Set of Eyes_!)

**Aboard the First Order Star Destroyer _Finalizer_**

**Stateroom of Kylo Ren**

**Four days after the Battle of Dantooine**

  
  


He had lost control.

Completely and utterly--Kylo Ren had _lost control_ of his powers of the mind, and the result...this he _dared not_ let anyone discern, not even...and _especially not_...Supreme Leader Snoke.

Snoke had mocked his loyal servant for his mask during their month of training in solitude after the destruction of Starkiller Base. He had forbidden it to his apprentice the entire time, whether in his own eminent presence, that of his Attendant-navigators, or the Praetorian Guard that kept their watch any time Ren moved about. All the better to ensure his longest-tenured servants understood that, for all his power, Kylo Ren was just a man, and one who could be struck down if need be.

And all the better to see how Ren's face contorted as he screamed when the Supreme Leader's Force Lightning scoured his body as penalty for his failures--all the better to see his downcast gaze as he pled for mercy, for he had given his all, up to and _very much including_ the life of Han Solo. He had subordinated his weakest impulses, he had seized the chance...and with it, had bought no prestige in his master's eyes. Only the right to live after the demise of Starkiller Base. To _endure_.

But _now_...now, thank all the stars in the galaxy for the mask of the Commander of the Knights of Ren, that had awaited him as he boarded his command shuttle for the return journey to the _Finalizier_. And his return to battle in the Dantooine system.

_Dantooine_.

Blessedly alone in his cabin, Commander Ren shuddered. To think the word invoked its legacy into being. Once more he fought to push it _out_ of him. Once more it receded into the deeper portions of his consciousness, but never truly retreated.

A tiny world in terms of its military might and population--nearly abandoned in the dark days of the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire, but the target of settlement once again in the lawless era before the First Order. But its position relative to the galactic plane held potential. And its people...be gone, be _gone!_...what they lacked in number, they made up in defiance that dared not be allowed out of check.

Out of check...he had fought, he had secured his objectives in the eyes of his Stormtroopers and even--as far as he could tell--those of the Supreme Leader himself. Even General Hux had found little about which to complain.

But for his mask, though, the Troopers would have witnessed the unadulterated _terror_ upon his features when he sensed...too late!...too late?...the interrogation of the medic spiralling into an impossible maelstrom that threatened to pull him down, to drown him-- _drown them both_ \--for all time. But for his mask, they would have watched the horror, the _realization_ gnawing deeper and deeper into his gut as the prisoner's unconsciousness did nothing to blunt the immediacy of this _thing_ rooted inside his mind. And the impulse, just barely checked in time, to reach two fingers to the patient's-- _the medic's_ neck--

_Ensure the patient is breathing and has a pulse. Loosen any restrictive clothing, and barring any broken bones, move them into the recovery position--_

Take her! he'd choked out instead, the vocabulator in his mask covering for the constriction in his chest, the racing heart he could not control. Four hundred kilometers in altitude, that would have to do it, break this connection that he himself had brought into being. Even _he_ should have to open and hold a channel by concentrated act of will at that distance, to a target with power over the Force. And this one held no more presence in the Force than any average human. This _should not have happened_ \--it made no sense...!

He'd had to press on--complete the mission, ensure the planet's defenses lay in ruin, the Resistance pilot and local militia assets seized for intelligence wherever possible, yet all the while _that presence_ never receded. Unconscious, yes, but he kept having to force the fevered fragments of being from his mind, along with the mad whirl of his own desperate thoughts. _They must not scan her--if she goes into convulsions, the doctors might scan her, they might see_ something _, don't know what, but_ something _!_

Perhaps he should feel pride. Pride that, in his return to combat he had achieved every one of his stated objectives. He'd crippled the Dantooinian Guard, withdrawn the _Finalizer_ with minimal damage and casualties per the Supreme Leader's current strategic aims, obtained intelligence on the Resistance, Dantooine itself, and some of its neighbors' militias as well. He'd left not a _thing_ to reproach, except--except...

_This_.

Even _this_ notwithstanding--this grave, hidden failure--it had still been a bitter pill to swallow when he'd brushed aside Hux' needling about the medic and her continued presence aboard the _Finalizer_ , and he'd countered Hux' insistence on ejecting the woman out the nearest airlock like a spent missile shell. As far as Hux was concerned there seemed little to gain from such a provincial civilian, even through impressment into the First Order's service. So Commander Ren had given the scheming general exactly what he needed to take the bait and...he hoped...keep his investigations to a semi-tolerable level.

Ren's hands had balled into fists at his side--now too, just as they had then--when he had turned and stared from behind his mask straight into the flameheaded schutta-weasel's green-grey eyes. He had forced out a concession of sorts--that he'd learned a _lesson_ from his overreliance on the Jakku scavenger for intelligence. That in that...Hux had been right.

Rey...the scavenger girl...in his cabin Ren shuddered again. _She_ had been the first to pierce his defenses, even more thoroughly than the Supreme Leader himself. Without a hint of training she had skewered straight through his soul...but with her, there _were_ still reasons. Not just the immense presence of the Force at her command, but other things as well. Things she herself knew not, lost to her...but not to him.

This Dantooine medic was _not_ Rey--had nothing to do with her. Her eyes were not Rey's eyes, full of Dark Side Force-fueled rage and the desire to destroy him from the inside out despite all her pretensions of Light. _The medic_ \--it was easier to think of her that way, to forbid her name to cross his mind. Oh, he'd beheld an animalistic fire in her eyes, to be sure. But not the _same_ fire. Though her eyes had pierced Ren's mask as if it weren't even there, there had also been something different, something that carefully analyzed the once-unimaginable insanity that bound them together and sought to understand in spite of itself.

Had the scavenger done this to him somehow? Had her assault upon his mind torn a permanent gash in his defenses, left him vulnerable, not to attack, but to whatever _this_ was? Yet if that had been the case, surely this _weakness_ would have been expunged from him during his month in the exalted presence of the Supreme Leader. Snoke had scoured through his mind, brought to ugly light the _sentiments_ that had plagued him, tested his body with crushing Force and lightning until he had risen focused, implacable in his refined rage--

\--and now?

If Supreme Leader could see...worse, _sense him_ now...!

Knotted fingers rose of their own accord, ran through his hair, pressed their hide-covered tips to his scalp as if to drive this _thing_ out of him. His face contorted--for a second, a twinge of pain as his grimace involuntarily pulled at the stiff tissue of his healed scar. And that pain--it focused him, sharpened his resolve...until it found an echo in one of his hands, a dull ache as if through layers of tissue and bone.

So _our_ medic gave her a painkiller, he thought to himself.

Commander Ren's stomach twisted. That broken hand, the rage, the _resolve_ she'd gained from it as if _feeding_ on the pain to face him...he knew it well. Briefly it had given way to confusion--then to fire and steel once more as she'd confronted the truth of what had happened. He couldn't shake the image, nor the turmoil behind it.

And especially not the disquieting implications of what it potentially _meant_ , this instant, acute reaction by his own body to what had happened to another. No--his own hand had not sustained physical injury, but how much deeper might the danger run, if he could not _end this now_...!

Deep-- _deep_ into his own mind he pushed this time, his entire being channeled towards one singleminded goal: to rip the tether between their minds out from its very root.

Blackness swam to the edges of his vision before he could even register what was happening. He staggered one--two--steps towards his bed, his legs...no, his _entire body_ feeling like a distant, ill-fitted alien appendage.

Then his legs gave way entirely. The floor rushed up and he clutched wildly at the covers, hoping in his last second of lucidity to spare himself the full force of impact on the deck. His heart raced, erratic--his limbs twitched against his will--he gasped for breath as all control faded--

  
  


  
_...he stood with hands pressed flat upon the dresser, getting ready for the day. It hadn't exactly been the best night of sleep, considering the strange symptoms he'd been pondering from yesterday's last patient. Seizures and growing confusion seemingly out of nowhere...no signs of fever or history of head injury...the only thing that_ was _readily obvious was that, left unchecked, this unknown condition could easily destroy her quality of life. Or even end it altogether._

_Whatever it was, he needed an answer for her sake, without delay._

_Which was a pretty daunting task considering just how new all of this still was, working in the absence of a mentor or_ any _other medical expert save for some of the villagers who had some battlefield first aid under their belts from the Rebellion._

_(...why did his stomach twist at the thought--he'd known them all his life--why was it so different, so..._ unnerving _now...?)_

_Save for the medical libraries and the hope that maybe someone in the Ministry of Health up in New Garang might have the time to take a call, it was all up to him to figure this out, the first true_ unknown _to come across the threshold of the practice since his mentor's passing._

_Right now though, he found himself wondering if he'd caught something from the patient. By all the stars in the galaxy it better not be transmissible--the lack of other symptoms had suggested not--perhaps he hadn't taken enough precautions the day before._

_Things felt..._ strange _somehow. Objects he would have expected to come up to a lower height seemed to have grown. Nowhere to the extent they might have if, say, he'd blundered his way into a Hutt-built structure, but more like wandering around in a Gungan dwelling where people his height were considered merely average, maybe even a touch short for a man._

_(...how did he even_ know _what dwellings for those species were like, when he'd never been offworld?)_

_Still, the effect was there, and it was just enough to unnerve him._

_What was almost worse was the fact that he didn't know_ why _he should feel this way, when he'd known this village--and especially this multigenerational home--all his life._

_Why should it all feel so alien and out of proportion, when this was the life his family had led ever since his grandparents had brought them to this world? Sure, people on some worlds liked living in smaller units, apart from each other, and got an itch to move out of the family home the instant they reached legal majority, but there'd never been any push to do that on Dantooine. Moving out might happen after marriage, depending on which family's home could best accommodate the couple and their future children, but it certainly wasn't a given or a necessity._

_And getting a career started...true, opportunities were limited outside agriculture or animal husbandry here without a move to a larger town, or even to the cities of New Garang or New Khoonda, but fortunately the chance had come up for an apprenticeship right here to the village medic. The chance to serve the people he'd known all his life--there was nothing in the world like it._

_Some days it could be difficult...especially when a case needed to be referred to New Garang either due to lack of equipment or lack of specialist's expertise, and there was no guarantee the patient could afford the trip. Or when there was simply nothing that_ anyone _, in the village, in New Garang, or anywhere, could do. But...it still felt_ right _. It still felt like he was where he belonged, doing what he was meant to do._

_So what was it about about his perceptions--about today--whatever it was--that felt so_ off _? Why did the world feel intangible, just out of reach somehow, even though the dresser beneath his hands felt as solid as ever?_

_He looked up at the mirror--searching for what? The dilation of his pupils, maybe, to rule out signs of some sort of ocular or neurological problem?_

_(..._ her _eyes, those blasted other-eyes that pierced right through and into him, staring back at him from the mirror, unavoidable...)_

_He jerked away from the mirror, shook his head. He had to concentrate...he couldn't let these paranoid fears creep into his consciousness, not when he had a job to do and a patient who was counting on him to figure out just what the hell was going on with the most critical organ of her body._

_Maybe fresh air would do some good. A walk on the trail through the woods around the village perimeter, maybe...there should be time for that, at least, since the patient was currently resting at home and there were none over at the practice under observation._

_He made sure to grab the handheld comm link on the dresser before he slipped on a coat and left though. Ever since the old medic's death, even though this was nominally the one day of the week off for almost everyone in the village, he couldn't be out of communication, in case someone needed urgent care. Damn it,_ why _wasn't the Ministry of Health up in New Garang doing anything to send a successor, someone with full doctor's qualifications who had actually had the opportunity to train at the city medcenter?_

_Maybe it was because there was no one. Maybe the most highly trained medics and doctors were bailing out on Dantooine and heading to more populated systems, higher pay, and cushier living conditions. And to be fair, if someone was planning on practicing multispecies medicine, most of that on Dantooine was going to involve pets and livestock...if they really wanted to practice on multiple sentient species, even one of the longer-settled desert backwaters like Tatooine or Jakku was a better bet than this world._

_Which made it all the more important to stay put here, to continue serving the people of this village however possible._

_(..._ impossible _now of course--security and secrecy_ demand _no return except, perhaps, in ashes...)_

_Autumn leaves crunched beneath his feet as he stepped out onto the trail, the crispness of sound a harmonious match to the crispness in the air._

_Strange, came the idle thought, how many worlds' plants had evolved similar solutions to deal with the problem of the oncoming winter. Just as with the frequency of the humanoid form it was hard to say for sure whether that had to do with ancient waves of settlement from civilizations long since gone from the galaxy, or maybe even some kind of even more primeval form of panspermia--life, the code for it, literally falling from the stars on comets or asteroids. And of course where similar life forms went, so too did similar diseases. Humanity, as spread out among the stars as it was, certainly did an excellent job of_ that _, given how many different biospheres, interconnected by trade routes and various rogue spacers, they had as a species to unwittingly perform experiments in pathogen evolution._

_That turned his mind back to his patient's mystery condition. Could it be something literally never seen on this world before?_

_Probably not likely. For something new from offworld to have reached this far into the Dantooine hinterlands, though, there would typically have been_ some _kind of warning from the cities or larger towns first. Dantooine was thinly settled, yes, but_ not _subject to the kind of ubiquitous, oppressive poverty of those desert worlds he'd been thinking of just a moment ago. Dantooine was a far more forgiving world in resources and clime than that. People here might not have the money to get to New Garang for a specialist visit easily, but most of the ones he knew in the village were literate and at least had enough for a vidscreen for two-d planetary news access. And there_ were _a few epidemiologists in New Garang and New Khoonda who knew enough to recognize novel disease outbreaks._

_Unless something_ really _improbable had happened, whatever this was--assuming it was an infection of some sort--had to have originated on-world. Zoonotic spillover of a novel disease here on Dantooine wasn't out of the question...mixing humans and their livestock had the tendency to do that every now and then, and had since time immemorial. There had been on-and-off human settlement on Dantooine for a while, and even those early attempts could've left various pathogens circulating among the planet's fauna, doing...whatever they did while no one was watching, maybe even for a couple thousand years._

_The fact of the matter, though, was that the odds favored something that_ had _been seen on Dantooine before--just not something seen by_ him _. And that had the potential to be quite a lot._

_A blaster bolt sang in the distance. That would be an iriaz-deer hunter, he figured, taking his prey down first with a stun shot. Sure enough, a second bolt followed a minute later--the kill shot, never felt by the unconscious animal. It was considered the humane way to hunt...best, if one had to take a life, to do it as painlessly as possible._

_(...efficient, minimizes struggle and loss of necessary meat, yes--but to regret what must be done is weakness...a sentiment for those from comfortable worlds, that those who face the galaxy as it is cannot afford...)_

_You could buy meat at the market, of course...agriculture and herding were two things Dantooine did well, and imported species like bantha and nerfs were more than well suited to the planet's temperate climate. But some people--either for the sportsmanship, or out of necessity if they couldn't afford the storebought stuff--hunted their own game. As for him, he'd never had any experience preparing and cooking wild game. He had some idea of the guidelines for the most popular commercial meats, which, when one knew about the many types of foodborne diseases and even_ parasites _they could carry, typically constituted some variation on 'very well done, thank you very much'--_

Wild game. Foodborne diseases. Parasites. No way--could that be it?!

_He broke into a run. The patient's history flooded by with each footfall. She--her entire family--all of them spent a great deal of time outdoors, in the woods. They weren't all that well off...camping was one of the few indulgences they could really afford. He would bet almost anything they hunted their own food and if they cooked it over a campfire,_ something _might well have slipped into his patient's system that way._

_He ignored the looks he got as he crossed back into the village, cut down the streets and through to his practice._

_(..._ this _place, this is where everything went sideways...so_ this _is what it looks like during the day...)_

_Yes--this was supposed to be his day off. It didn't matter now...not when there might be a diagnosis in sight. He thumped down hard into his seat in front of the comm and research terminal--one of the few truly modern instruments he and his predecessor had been able to afford. Moments like this..._ this _was why, out of all the things they could've chosen to do with the limited funds available. The chance to find_ answers _. Even if those answers led to a referral to the city, those were patients who now had a fighting chance._

_He started keying in the search terms almost before the infectious diseases manual popped up on screen._

Seizures. Altered mental state. No fever. _He'd run variants of that search plenty of times already and come back with a galaxy full of far, far too many results. He added the new search terms._ Foodborne or waterborne parasite, Dantooine native.

_This time the search yielded just a single result._

Neurocystericosis (Dantooine quenker tapeworm).

_The forests surrounding the village_ definitely _held a variety of giant quenker-jerboa that people occasionally hunted for food. Thanks to their speed and stealth, they weren't one of the most common prey animals and he certainly couldn't say he'd ever had quenker meat himself--but it was supposed to be quite the prize._

_This whole thing was still a long shot--it could still be some type of brain cancer that hadn't shown up on earlier blood analyses, something that only brain imaging could conclusively detect. Still, as her old mentor used to say, it cost nothing to ask a question. He entered the comm code for his patient's family household._

_"_ Good morning _," came the immediate reply from her husband. "_ It's good to hear from you-- _"_

_(...that is not my name--NOT my name...is it?)_

_"_ I wasn't expecting a call from you today." _The man's brow furrowed. "_ You didn't get a new test result back, did you? Hang on...she's not having a good day today, but I'm still going to get her."

_He nodded in understanding. She'd given her consent for her husband to discuss her medical information, even make decisions for her if she got to a point where she no longer could for herself. He hoped she hadn't gotten to that point yet. If so, even with a potential diagnosis in hand it might well be too late._

_Still, they had to try._

_When she came to the comm, he noted with an inward sigh of relief that at least her eyes, bleary as they were, seeme to be focused ahead on him. She leaned on her husband's shoulder, waiting with silent, resigned expectation._

_"_ She had a seizure this morning," _her husband explained._

_"We can look at your anticonvulsant dosage," he assured them both. "Though I do have a question for you first. I was doing some research and I remembered you both mentioning the time you spend hunting and camping in the woods. This may sound like an odd question, but can you think of any times--it could be months ago, it could even be_ years _ago--that you might have shot a quenker and cooked it out in the woods without a food thermometer? Or where you might have shared a water source with wild quenkers?_ "

"Yeah...you know, we _did_ bag a couple last summer." _His patient stared off into the distance._ "You don't think _that_ could have something to do with it, could you?"

" _No promises--but it could. I know this may sound shocking, but there's a type of tapeworm whose eggs can be carried in undercooked quenker meat, or water that's been contaminated by an infected quenker. It's been known to spread to the brain. It's a serious condition, but there are specialists who can treat it, if that's really what's going on. It'll be up to them how they manage it, or eliminate it if they can._ "

_His patient shuddered. Who could blame her--the idea of something foreign in her brain, some other creature, that may or may not be able to be removed..._

_(...another_ mind _...)_

_Still, after a moment she replied,_ "Well, at least this means there's a chance it's not cancer."

"What are our next steps?" _queried her husband._

_"We get another blood draw, and I droid-courier it high priority to New Garang. I_ am _still going to order some additional tests for evidence of cancer, but there'll be a specific test for antibodies to the quenker tapeworm. If it comes back positive, that's a reportable disease, so there will be instructions from the Health Ministry. They'll probably want everyone who's been living under your roof tested, as well as anyone else who went on those camping trips or shared the same quenker meat._

_"And everyone who comes back positive will need to go to a specialist in New Garang. That's especially going to be key if it means we've got a chance to stop or reverse disease progression in anyone else who might be infected."_

_The husband's brow furrowed again. "_ That could end up being a _lot_ of people to transport to New Garang. It's going to be rough just getting two of us up there, let alone affording specialist treatment..."

_This was far from a foreign situation--fortunately it wasn't the first time he'd had to deal with that. "I'm going to start making some contacts," he promised, "in case it looks like any of you need to go. There are some medical transport services out of New Garang I can try, and some others in the region that we've worked with in the past. Again, I can't promise anything, but hopefully at a minimum, transportation won't be a worry."_ That _much, at least, he might be able to swing out of his own salary as a donation from an 'anonymous villager.'_

_"_ Thank you so much for trying," _his patient replied, barely above a whisper._

_"You are so welcome," he said. "I'll book you for first thing in the morning for the new blood draw, if that works for you. I know it won't be an easy road if we get a positive, but what it_ will _mean is that we'll have a name for this. Which will mean we can fight it."_

_(...a naive theory--there are so many things that cannot be fought...)_

_She nodded._ "And that's all either of us can ask. I'll be there."

_He busied himself with the work he had promised to do--the work that somehow he already knew, in defiance of all laws of time, would lead to a diagnosis and, with time, a cure. He could see the joy on his patient's face when he received her medical file back from New Garang all those months later, that she was finally free of the parasite and the damage had been averted in the case of her family..._

  
  


Kylo Ren broke through the blackness with a sharp, agonized gasp. His lungs burned. His body ached. Cold sweat drenched his clammy skin. And the ever-presence within his mind...that remained, as close to the mind's touch as ever.

His final attempt to sever the connection between himself and the Dantooinian medic had ended in failure. Not only had he failed, something...some horrid reverberation through the Force, perhaps...warned him the effort had nearly cost him his life.

He wasn't sure how he should feel about that.

The cost of a prisoner, he tried to assure himself, would have been eminently reasonable. Especially a prisoner of little tactical or strategic importance, commendable though it had been that she had seen reason during her interrogation and allowed him to fully verify that fact.

That wasn't to say the woman lacked any form of skill, some other part of him argued despite himself. Though the full details of the memory eluded him now upon waking, Commander Ren had witnessed for himself... _lived_ for himself...how, despite interrupted training and limited resources, the frontier medic still had a knack for cobbling together solutions. He had felt her triumph as if it were hers, that first time bringing down a truly unforeseen enemy. A disease, insisted the otherness within him--but an enemy nonetheless.

She had no command over the Force, though as with any being its currents ran through her--the very currents that had, for reasons unknown, powered and sealed the bond between them. There _were_ certain among the non-Force-sensitive he esteemed as worthy comrades and soldiers of the First Order...that preening fool Hux notwithstanding...or enemy combatants. He would find some way to harness whatever she could offer...for now he knew: his life depended on it.

His life. His _entire_ life, however long it lasted, caught in his own snare.

The enormity of it threatened to devour him whole. Yet something within him...without him?...impelled him forward despite it all.

A crushing wave of exhaustion flooded over him, demanding sleep _now_. But after...

Endure. Somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very late prompt fic (as usual, unfortunately) from Star Wars month for Masterof4Elements on DA. The prompt she gave me was to write about Kylo Ren remembering something happy. Like another prompt or two she's given me, this one ended up taking a sharp right turn in that the memory Kylo remembered, as if it were his own, was not actually his.
> 
> MEDICAL NOTE: The disease the Reader character (here experienced in the first person by Kylo instead) diagnoses in her patient has a real-life counterpart. Neurocystericosis in real life is caused by larval cysts of the pork tapeworm, which become lodged in the brain. Though never maturing into adult tapeworms when they infect the brain, the cysts and increased intracranial pressure can lead to seizures and other neurological/cognitive disturbances. In fact, neurocystericosis is one of the most prevalent causes of otherwise unexplained adult-onset seizures in the developing world. Onset of noticeable systems can be delayed, taking months or even years after the initial infection to manifest.
> 
> Humans become infected by the pork tapeworm when they eat undercooked pork, or water that has become contaminated by fecal matter from infected organisms. The pork tapeworm often also infects the intestines, where it is able to mature into adulthood and then leave the body, beginning the cycle again. This is the reason why, like in "At Night It Gets Worse," if one member of a household is diagnosed with any form of pork tapeworm infection, everyone who lives in the same household (or may have ingested the same contaminated food or water) should get tested. in real life pork tapeworm infection isn't always as easily diagnosed by blood tests as portrayed in this story, but that is one of the diagnostic methods that may be employed. When neurological symptoms present, it's generally required that the patient get a brain scan with a neurologist to determine how serious the infestation in the brain is and what will be the best course of treatment. 
> 
> Antiparasitic medications can be used in combination with steroids to moderate the inflammatory response triggered by the death of the parasites, and in some cases can resolve all symptoms. In some neurocystericosis cases, brain surgery may be indicated. In other cases, it may even be possible to avoid aggressive treatment, monitor the disease, and treat symptoms as they arise, such as managing seizures with anticonvulsants. Getting diagnosed with pork tapeworm infection, especially neurocystericosis, is definitely something that should be handled by qualified medical personnel and nothing I have written here should be treated as medical advice for any symptoms you might be suffering. I am NOT a doctor...I just write several of them on DeviantArt. :D
> 
> Here's a handout from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on neurocystericosis. Don't worry, there aren't any gross pictures! There are more detailed/graphic materials you can search for online, but this sheet is pretty tame. :)
> 
> <https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/resources/pdf/npis_in_us_neurocysticercosis.pdf>


End file.
